When It Came to You, a twilight fanfic

Title: When It Came to You

Characters: Rosalie/Alice, Tanya/Alice

Rating: M/NC-17

Word Count: 2, 320

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. I give the characters broken hearts, and never fully heal them.

Summary: I know that you were never right for me. Perfect and flawed, pure and besmirched. My fallen angel. Femmeslash; rated M for that which is implied.

You haunt me baby

You haunt me here tonight

Tonight.

Anberlin – The Haunting

The postcard still sits on my desk unmailed, concealed by old Time special editions and homework that might never be finished. I would move it, but there isn't a reason to anymore. Any secrets that I would have wanted to bury, stray strings to cut, were burned with your body that night.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

But, of course, I can't. That probably doesn't surprise you, if you're looking up from Hell, or down from Heaven – even though I'm pretty sure with your track record, you wouldn't make it three feet past the Pearly Gates.

I remember that time at Costco, when you convinced me to act like the pizza gave me food poisoning so you could slip the bottle of wine under your jacket.

When they caught you, you looked like an angel, golden hair fanning down your shoulders, trailing down your back like a golden train. You were too beautiful to be arrested, to hustle and bruise with rough hands and silver handcuffs. They let you go, and I stared at you with awe as you stepped out of the store, the wine still in your hands.

No one had even noticed.

That happened a lot.

I always admired you, you know. I never told you, but I always did, even back when we were in that awkward not-sure-if-this-friendship-could-actually-work-because-we're-so-different phase. You were always so confident, the looks of a French model on a body that Venus would envy.

Next to you, I was small, unimportant, a lapdog constantly salivating at your heels. I needed you to notice me, wanted to know that in some way, I mattered in the world, mattered enough for a goddess like you to acknowledge me.

I was your most loyal worshipper, back then. I wasn't the only one, but I wanted to believe I was the only one who mattered. You led me on, threw me scraps to fan the flames. I don't know why you chose me out of your little entourage of copy queens. I never will.

That first night you kissed me, I felt something – something other than ache between my thighs and the feel of your smooth palms cupping my too small breasts…

Maybe I knew then, knew that this sudden need you felt for me was too good to be true.

But I wanted to believe. I needed to believe, that you wanted me as much as I wanted you.

I think my mother knows what happened between us. I never told her, because I promised you, and even if you spat in the face of all the trust that I put into you, I would never do that to you. Not even after you were dead and gone, and your ashes were scattered over the earth that you never seemed attached to, could I do that.

We were always together, hand in hand. I was always a few steps ahead, tugging you behind me, laughing and giddy and not noticing the way your lips curved just so, how you looked to both sides to make sure that there were no witnesses before you followed in my wake.

Maybe she guessed.

Maybe I didn't lock the door that first night, when you pulled off my panties and told me that you loved me.

I can still close my eyes and remember your slim fingers stroking me, inside me, your voice harsh and demanding me to promise you that you were the only one who could have me like this.

You own me.

Even now, you've left your mark on me.

That is another promise I have never broken. I wonder if, wherever you are, that makes you happy.

Now that you aren't here, crowding me, constantly intoxicating me with your lips, and your smile, and the glow of happiness and satisfaction that always surrounded you like a halo, I realize how much you consumed my life.

I never thought of other friends, companions, boys to occupy my time with. My life circled around you, being at your side, kneeling between your thighs and tasting the bittersweet wine that gathered like dew. There was no one else to think of. I don't even understand how I passed through school. I cannot remember a moment when you weren't here with me, convincing me to go with you on vacation, to parties, spend the night in your warm bed, concealed by the sheets and the airy canopy.

I still see your mother sometimes. I pass by her on the street and feel the ghost of you slip against me, chilling my skin. She gives me tight-lipped smiles, never calls me by name but asks how I am, how I feel. I wonder if she can even remember who I am, or has any idea how much you meant to me.

It hurt her a lot, losing you. You used to cry on my shoulder at night, drunk and sniveling with snot pouring like the tears down your glorious face. You'd rant about her, and her perfect friends, and her men who groped you when the liquor clouded her eyes and she couldn't see.

I would comfort you as you had taught me, tugging off your clothes, pressing us as close as possible until I felt like I could crawl into your shattered chest and sleep there. When they first came out and told us that you were gone, I remembered those nights: the sweet jasmine of your skin, your arm warm and possessive around my waist.

I never hated you. Even now, I don't think I can ever hate you.

After the funeral, I asked your parents if I could see your room. Even after your death, I was scared that my parents would find the pictures that I took those nights when we couldn't be together, just bare skin and dim lighting. You hid them well, wherever they are. Maybe they burned with you in the smashed car, edges curling up, ashes mixed with glass shards and spilled wine.

There was another girl in the car too. She died on the operation table. I hated her for those last few minutes of life, for distracting the doctors as you lay bleeding and broken, needing attention.

For the first time in your life, you didn't get the attention when you needed it.

No one had to tell me. I knew why that girl was there with you, why you were speeding in the direction of the cheap motel with a bottle of your father's vintage and an overnight bag in the backseat. I had known for a long time before then, but I tried to ignore it. I didn't want to face it, to realize that to you, I was only a quick fix.

I was never the only one.

But I still want to believe that I was the most important.

It took me months to convince myself that you were gone, that when I opened my eyes, this wouldn't just be a bad dream, and you'd be curled up against my side, warm, vulnerable, the sunlight glistening on your skin like liquid gold. I didn't change my sheets, terrified to lose your smell, and have no proof of the fact that you actually existed.

I was Orpheus yearning for one last glimpse of Eurydice, and knowing that hope was insubstantial.

You are gone, and everyone keeps telling me that I should let go.

My parents took me to grief counseling when I stopped eating, made me sit in the hard metal chair and introduce myself in a soft, barely there voice. It was as though you took all of me, the fiery, human part of me, to the other side with you, and left a broken, hollow shell.

No one could get anything out of me. After a while, no one tried.

I was forgotten, a dusty relic left behind in the absence of your heyday. And I didn't want to be found.

But sooner or later, everything is rediscovered. There is always someone who looks past the tears and the grime and the silence, and tries to clean everything off and put the pieces back together.

Bella did that for me.

I hated her at first. She was this shy, sweet cherub with her pale skin and constantly biting her lip, wearing clothes that you would have sneered at, a late bloomer plodding along after the stylish and socially accepted.

She is the complete opposite of you, and it scared me, even as I started to wake up from the deep sleep that your loss had put me into. Tendrils spread out from the warmth of her voice and the stories she told of places I hadn't seen – scorching sun and the smell of creosote and constant light.

I could understand the sadness in her voice, as she spoke of losing her mother, of being transplanted into a world of cloud banks and moss and darkness spreading its cold, unhappy blanket everywhere. It was how I felt when the heart monitor flat lined, when the doctor came out with his bloody gloves and said that he was sorry, but you couldn't fight any more.

You didn't fight to stay with me. Bella taught me how to fight to stay for myself.

She comes shopping with me now. Something that I always shared with you, I share with her now, modeling the slips and barely-there panties. Things you'd rip off later in the dimness of your bedroom, mouth pressed against mine, dirty, panting words caught between us like the tension waiting to explode…

We, on the other hand, look through windows, share ice cream and whispered secrets. Sometimes her boyfriend comes along, all tall, lanky with rusty hair and a wide crooked smile that makes me feel like the sun is filtering through the window panes.

I tell him sometimes about you. He doesn't say anything, but he seems to understand.

If you were still here, I know you wouldn't have approved of them, of the odd couple that they make – mismatched in height and size and looks and backgrounds. Sometimes, I look at them and feel like you are behind my eyes, judging their smiles, the way their hands touch and grip in public.

They are happy.

We were never truly happy together.

Sometimes, looking at them, and thinking about how we were, makes me sad – because, in all honesty, I know that you were never right for me.

It's taken me a while to realize that, and part of me still doesn't want to believe it. You are still my perfect idol, Mona Lisa with a devilish smirk and cruel intentions as your hand crept up my skirts underneath the dinner table.

Perfect and flawed, pure and besmirched.

My fallen angel.

I know that no one will compare in my mind to you; no matter how hard I try to push you out, you will always be there, a vengeful shadow measuring them up, making them wane before the memories that not even time can erase.

But I still want to try.

I want to prove to myself that you are gone, and that I am here, alive, breathing and young and with a future ahead of me.

Edward introduced me to Tanya, a few months after he and Bella were sure that I wouldn't commit suicide when the word 'dating' was mentioned. I didn't want to be near men, to entertain the idea of holding a large hand, to have a hard, muscular body pressing down on me when I have felt satin skin, gentle feathery kisses and forbidden warmth.

She was obnoxious, assuming, laying her hand on my knee under the table in a blatant mockery of your touch. I excused myself to the bathroom five minutes into the date, choking on my tears and the mucus forming a lump in my throat. Bella followed after me, and hugged me close, letting me feel her, know that someone cared for me.

She wasn't you.

She would never be you.

But I went out again anyway. I gave her another try, ignored the pitying stares and quiet tones and the fact that she refused to touch me and try to hold my hand even after our fifth date in a dark, solemn movie theater surrounded by couples reaching bases and crossing over them in the hushed silence; too frightened that the madness would overtake me, that I would realize that she was a stranger.

She is not you.

But she tries to please me. She held me that first night when her fingers grazed over the place in me that was always, and will always be yours.

I am not sure that we will last. I am too battered; damaged property that no buyer will want to mend. There is only so much she can take of my flinching, my waking up and screaming when I realize that it is not your body snuggled up to mine for warmth, of taboo subjects and dangerous prescriptions hidden in the bathroom cabinet.

But I want to try.

I want to heal.

I want to be able to stand tall, to no longer cower in the shadow of your memory; to be the girl who can walk tall down the corridor, ignoring the pitying stares and whispers that follow her. I don't want to have to curl up and cry in a dirty bathroom stall, because I saw a flicker of blue eyes, tossed blonde hair, a smile, a laugh – something, anything, that revived your ghost.

She is here, beside me, with a tentative smile and gentle hands, trying to help me as much as she can.

I will never be right again. I will never be that girl that I was, before you so firmly planted yourself in my life: bright-eyed and ready to take on the world without anyone at my side.

She is gone, and I know that she will never come back.

But maybe, maybe someday when I can finally open my eyes and not see you sitting here, smiling at me, waiting for the dam to burst – maybe someday when I am my own person, not just a leftover half of you, not just the girl that sits in the corner, the ticking time bomb minutes away from explosion – maybe a new girl will form, an older, wiser girl with tears in her eyes and tape around her broken heart.

And I will be able to live.

Without you.